The Unsound methods of AUDINT
http://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/interviews/the-unsound-methods-of-audint
December 2016
Image from the inside cover of AUDINT’s Martial Hauntology
Eleni Ikoniadou and Lendl Barcelos talk extreme frequencies, cryptic records and sonic warfare with
the audiovisual research group
AUDINT, whose name is an abbreviation of Audio Intelligence – is a research cell with a double aim: to
conduct theoretical and artistic experiments at the peripheral zones of sound, and to investigate their
impact on psychological and physiological states. These zones are what AUDINT refer to as unsound:
audio-related phenomena in the wider vibrational spectrum which, they argue, are capable of
offering insights into the unknown aspects of perception. Their mission is to probe peripheral zones of
sound, those frequencies, such as infrasound and ultrasound, existing at the perceptual boundaries.
The group even claim there is a phantom sense that once allowed us to communicate with what
exists on the edges of perception – what they term the third ear – which can connect to other times
and spaces and to other forms of vibratory intelligence.
The collective, publicly active since 2008, consists of Toby Heys, a Digital Research Fellow at
Manchester Metropolitan University and previous member of Battery Operated; Steve Goodman, aka
Kode9, author of Sonic Warfare and the head of the Hyperdub record label; and new recruits Patrick
Doan, a digital artist based in Berlin, and Souzanna Zamfe, a Russian born futurity and sonology
researcher. We interviewed the group a number of times via email, and they provide an insight into
exploration of ultrasonic and infrasonic frequencies. “Given that all sensory information could be
considered to be spectral in essence,” they argue, “those frequencies above and below the thresholds
of human hearing become interfaces for understanding how perceptual mechanisms within us have
been deactivated, much like genes that have been trip-switched by extreme experiences.” The group
have already produced a series of (un)sound installations, films, talks, records and book projects, with
performances and exhibitions at London’s Tate Britain and New York gallery Art In General, and
festivals in Montreal, Krakow and Berlin. This December saw the release of Reel Torque Volume 32,
the second part of a projected trilogy of AUDINT cassette boxsets, this instalment titled Archive File:
Nguyễn Văn Phong, a set of recordings from “Vietnamese bioacoustics expert, computer programmer
and financial strategist” that supposedly date from 1955–79.
But AUDINT’s output hints at origins that reach even further back in time. A collection of AUDINT
recordings, writings and illustrations were originally released in 2014 as Martial Hauntology, a boxset
designed by regular Hyperdub collaborator Optigram. The project investigates frequency-related
technologies and programs developed by military organisations since 1944 to orchestrate the spectral
phenomena of haunting within the area of conflict. Opening track “Delusions Of The Living Dead”
begins with a soft female voice – known as Ms Haptic – that begins a phantom tour of the world of
AUDINT. She speaks of characters, places and schemes formed in the wake of the Second World War
on the back of a tactical deception unit known as the Ghost Army. It could be a recent discovery or
something that does not exist at all; therefore she is free to say everything or nothing.
Each of the six sides of vinyl is a chapter that plugs into a larger narrative outlined in the book and
offers an opportunity to listen into the world of AUDINT. “The records were purposefully made to
have cross-referential aspects in the sound design,” the group explain. “But the atmosphere and style
of each side is purposefully very different... so whereas “Delusions Of The Living Dead” has a noirish
late 1940s feel to it, “DRNE Cartography” has a much more futuristic Asian feel that often sounds like
the tumult of pings, beeps and digital chatterings of Electronics Avenue in Zhongguancun, China or
Akihabara Electric Town in Tokyo.”
The listening experience possibly conceals more than it reveals about AUDINT. Martial Hauntology
seems to be purposely engineered to leave the audience partially ignorant about the collective – even
after an online search of the names, places and technologies mentioned in the set, one succumbs to a
certain degree of paranoia generated by the project about what is real and what is not. The Ghost
Army, for example, was the unofficial name of the US 23rd Headquarters Special Troops in the Second
World War. They were made up of “soldiers whose most effective weapon was artistry”, as an article
in The Atlantic put it. Ghosters were unlikely soldiers – actors, sound technicians, artists and other
creative types taken from art schools and advertising agencies, to construct fake tanks, recordings
and radio transmissions to confuse the Nazis about the whereabouts of the Allied forces. There's
documentation to suggest that Ellsworth Kelly, the American abstract painter and sculptor, and one of
the characters mentioned in Martial Hauntology, was indeed a Ghoster. But what about other
characters mentioned in Martial Hauntology such as Hypolite Morton, Walter Slepian or Bill Arnett?
And what of its mentions of unclassified government documents, shrouded PSYOPS histories and
patents from weapons developers?
One of the fascinations of AUDINT is that they claim to be only the latest incarnation of a unit that
dates back to 1945. By the group’s account, Heys, Goodman, Doan and Zamfe are merely agents
operating under the direction of IREX2; a sonic algorithm that assumes different carriers across space
and time.
The Martial Hauntology boxset contains a set of annotated cards, supposedly from a collection
dubbed the Dead Record Archive, featuring the likes of Alan Turing, Antonin Artaud, Theodor Reich
and Thomas Edison, as well as more esoteric ‘historical figures’. Martial Hauntology situates these
characters in an intricate puzzle of audio and military details that crosses over from vinyl to book to
cards. These so-called dead records are simply pieces of disused vinyl apparently culled from “flea
markets, thrift stores, and church bazaars”, and information about scientists, engineers, auditory
illusions and sonic weapons are illustrated onto the grey/beige card of inside-out record sleeves. In
reality, only a minority of these 256 records were actually released. But, given AUDINT members’
research specialisations in this area, it remains tantalisingly possible that some of these records might
have actually existed.
AUDINT Dead Record Archive
Back in 2011, the group began to upload music files online with encrypted messages taken from the
Dead Record Archive. Using a self-produced software application named Ghostcoder, they embedded
reprocessed recordings at frequency bands several octaves above the limit of human hearing into
popular music from each decade. Taking the most popular music torrent downloaded for each decade
(including Duke Ellington’s Jubilee Stomp, Bob Dylan’s Highway 61, 50 Cent’s Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ all
the way through to Eminem’s 2010 album Recovery) AUDINT created a new torrent with message
encoded in the audio.
Anyone who used these torrents to download the albums would be unable to hear the difference
between the AUDINT version and a standard one. But there are clues that hint at encrypted
documents. If you downloaded files via a torrent named The Carpenters[FLAC][AUDiNT], you might
notice that what purports to be audio ripped from a CD at 44.1 kilohertz turns out to be a 32 bit, 384
kHz .flac file. Putting the file into a spectrogram, you can see hypersonic information that remains
inaudible.
Spectrogram of AUDiNT’s ghostcoded carpenters.flac file with hidden track
Using the same Ghostcoder software to convert the hidden data back, you can hear a computergenerated voice speaking of sonic weaponry developed by the British army against protesters in
Northern Ireland.
The group’s ongoing research claims to “uncover links between the underground groove of the Large
Hadron Collider and the vaults of the Bank of Hell; connects the Dead Record Network with the
Phantom Hailer”, according to a press release for an exhibition in Montreal. As the AUDINT archive
develops, new chapters of missing history are promised through publications and recordings.
Martial Hauntology serves as a reminder that cultural artefacts like records can affect reality rather
than simply represent it. In conjunction with the internet, a realm that excels in speculation, rumour
and anonymity, you get an idea of how fictional tactics are well suited to the indeterminable sphere
of sound.
While AUDINT have no direct associates, the group divulge that future projects have connections
elsewhere: with Suzanne’s Treister multimedia artwork Hexen 2039, featuring the fictional alter ego
Rosalind Brodsky, a delusional time traveller who believes herself to be working at the Institute of
Militronics and Advanced Time Interventionality; Julien Henriques and Heidi Sincuba’s projected
sonographic novel Captain Eko And Her Sonic Warriors; the Gothic futurism of the sculptures,
writings, films and music of legendary New York graffiti writer and hiphop musician Rammellzee, and
Drexciya, the Detroit techno duo that set out to rewrite the ending in the history of transatlantic
slavery. Like all of the above, AUDINT entwine imagined realities into conversations with history.
Perhaps AUDINT are a sign of the times: a response to the return of irrationality, bleakness and
uncertainty at the heart of global politics and economics. The ending of Martial Hauntology
references the “spectral marketing of ghost (war) money“ and the “Bank of Hell… cast(ing) a curse
over the global economic system (the unpredictable dimensions of which are still unfolding)”. The
question of whether AUDINT are a fictional or real research cell becomes redundant: the fiction is all
part of the horror.
At Loop Berlin in November, AUDINT screened a trailer from a forthcoming animated film Ghostcode,
set in 2056, when Corporations and Nation states have fused into single economic and political
entities. Meanwhile, it is rumoured that IREX2 continues to recruit human agents for its propagation.